Now that I am too old for it to make much practical difference to me, I am discovering that things are usually not what they purport to be.

The frequency with which I see kids being framed by ambitious prosecutors and corrupt judges proves to me that American justice is not just—unless you’re rich.

The history of American schooling proves that public schools were created and are designed to make children ignorant and malleable, not to “educate” them for self-improvement in the way you and I think of education—that is, unless you’re rich.

The true history of America’s entry into the wars of the Twentieth Century (as well as our perpetual “War on Terror”) is a story of deceit and betrayal and a perversion of reality so profound that any thinking person ends up questioning who the “good guys” are. I feel sorry for my father and his generation because they were duped and used and thrown away just as today’s soldiers are. I’m glad my dad’s generation is dead and that they don’t have to confront the demoralizing historical revelations of betrayal which are finally coming to light.

It is a bitter lesson to see that the only winners in any war are the bankers who invest in all sides of conflicts and compound their wealth on the backs and corpses of millions of idealistic young people and their families. War is the biggest business there is.

It is a bitter pill to swallow to accept that Big Pharma is conditioning us to believe that the emotional ups and downs of normal living are symptoms of disorders that can only be coped with by turning ourselves and our children into legal drug addicts—while at the same time our government pursues a fraudulent “War on Drugs” that fills our prisons with millions of people who have caused no real harm to others and that’s creating a bloodbath in Mexican border towns and causing the deaths of thousands of innocents.

It is a burden knowing that our government, enwrapped in the layers of mythology we were taught as children (and that we want to believe), exists to enslave and exploit the people and not to serve them. It is a burden knowing that our history is a lie. It makes me sad that people are so credulous that they believe they’re sacrificing and dying for Freedom while unbeknownst to them they are being used for the exact opposite purpose.

It reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode called “To Serve Man.” Look it up and see what I mean.

It is almost a joke that you can read the titles of legislation passed by Congress and be assured that the intent of the law is almost always the opposite of what the title claims. But when you think about what this means, it’s not funny at all.

This is why I’m a dropout. I refuse to go along any more.

Jail me, shoot me, or just leave me alone. I’m too old to care. But I don’t believe the lies any more. I’m going to live out my last years and days with integrity, as a free, self-responsible, and sovereign human being. “Live free or die.”